geography Archives - understand-culture

Don Goyo

The people of Santiago Xalitzintla, San Pedro Benito Juárez and Tochimilco call the Popocatépetl volcano Don Goyo. Every March 12 they celebrate what AFP calls his birthday.

Antonio Analco, the tiempero of Xalitzintla, told N+: “estamos acostumbrados a vivir con él de años, de tiempo” (we have been used to living with him for years, for a long time).

A resident, Juana Pérez, said: “Estamos en las manos del Señor, si nos va a llevar, nos va a llevar, y si no, pues qué vamos a hacer” (We are in the Lord’s hands. If he is going to take us, he will take us, and if not, well, what are we going to do).

Inō Tadataka’s Map

In 1800, at the age of 55, Inō Tadataka began to survey Ezo, today’s Hokkaido. He went on survey after survey, up to the tenth, in 1816. The map of Japan’s coasts, Dai Nihon enkai yochi zenzu, known as the Inō map, was completed in 1821, after his death, and presented to the shogunate.

He is said to have walked about 40,000 kilometers in 17 years to survey the country.

Forty Years on the Border

In May 1991, China and the Soviet Union signed an agreement on the eastern section of their border. On October 14, 2004, during a visit by Vladimir Putin, China and Russia signed a supplementary agreement on that section. On July 21, 2008, the two sides signed a protocol in Beijing defining the border line between them. China Daily quoted the Russian Foreign Ministry as saying that the talks had lasted more than 40 years.

The Spring Festival Rush

Every year, in about forty days around the Spring Festival, hundreds of millions of people cross the country. The rush is called chunyun. It grows out of the custom of reuniting with family for the festival. Even people who work far from home try to be back before New Year’s Eve.

The word first appeared in People’s Daily and Xinhua reports in 1980. For the 2026 rush, 9.4 billion cross-region trips were expected, a new record.

Tea Garden Time

In Assam’s tea gardens, work runs on bagaan time, tea garden time. It is a schedule kept by tea planters, one hour ahead of Indian Standard Time, and it dates from the British period.

In January 2014 the Assam government announced that the whole state would switch to bagaan time, Al Jazeera reported.

Fewer Americans Move

In 1948, the first year the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey asked the question, 20.2 percent of Americans had moved in the past year. In 2021 the figure was 8.4 percent. The Census Bureau called it “a new historical low.”

The share of Americans who move each year has fallen by more than half.

Geography as a Systems Science

The educational standards for geography at the intermediate school level start from one idea. Da sich die Geographie als Systemwissenschaft versteht, ist das Hauptbasiskonzept des Faches das Systemkonzept. Because geography sees itself as a systems science, the main basic concept of the subject is the system concept. Its parts are structure, function and process. The German Geographical Society published the 10th edition of the standards in 2020.

The subject looks at the earth as a system of people and environment. The society’s standards for the Abitur of 2024 speak of die komplexen und dynamischen Wechselbeziehungen innerhalb und zwischen physischen und anthropogenen (Sub-)Systemen, the complex and dynamic interactions within and between physical and human systems.

Thünen’s Rings

In 1826 Johann Heinrich von Thünen published the first part of Der isolirte Staat, The Isolated State. He imagined a state with one city as its only market, surrounded by rings of farming. What is grown in each ring depends on its distance from the market. In German the model is known as the Thünensche Ringe, Thünen’s rings.

The national biography says that Thünen gave important impulses to location theory and to economic geography. Teaching material for upper secondary geography still presents the rings as a thinking model zur Erklärung räumlicher Ordnungsmuster in der Landwirtschaft, for explaining spatial patterns in farming.

The Busiest Weekend of the Summer

Germany staggers school summer holidays across its states. In 2026 Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg started last. With their start, all states were on summer holiday at the same time. The automobile club ADAC expected that weekend, 31 July to 2 August, to be the busiest of the whole holiday season on the roads.